If Speaker Darryl Plecas's 76-page report released Monday on the outrageous spending going on at the legislature in Victoria is even half correct, MLAs failed in one of their core responsibilities as elected officials: overseeing the bureaucrats to make sure jobs are being done and tax dollars are being spent appropriately.
The primary focus of MLAs seems to be to take cheap shots against their political opponents during Question Period when the legislature is in session and to take cheap shots on Twitter against their political opponents whether the legislature is in session or not.
Meanwhile, there is an entire committee of MLAs from all parties that sit on the Legislative Assembly Management Committee.
It is this group's job to supervise the clerk of the legislative assembly, the senior bureaucrat in charge of all of the legislature staff and the work they do to keep the legislature operating smoothly so the MLAs can focus on working for their constituents and their parties. The supervision of the clerk means making sure the legislature is operating smoothly and the finances are in order.
This isn't exactly glamourous work for ambitious MLAs looking to rise in the ranks.
It's the political equivalent of babysitting and it's easy for MLAs to be distracted. Senior bureaucrats are knowledgeable, competent and experienced individuals who know how to manage their managers by showing how smoothly everything is going. With so much governing and politicking going on, who really has the time to make sure the bureaucrats aren't running up huge personal expenses?
The job for MLAs is made even more difficult because they form relationships with the top civil servants. They like them and they trust them. They don't feel comfortable questioning the performance of a bureaucrat with decades of experience and years in the top job.
Near the start of his report, Plecas admitted that he took the same approach in his early days as Speaker. He found the liquor cabinets in his office stocked with expensive Scotch and the freewheeling travel and spending of the legislature's senior employees troubling, but he was more worried with learning the job, particularly in a legislature held together by a razor-thin NDP/Green coalition.
Who was he - an MLA from Abbotsford, despised by his former B.C. Liberal colleagues and kicked out of the party for agreeing to serve as Speaker for an NDP government - to question parliamentary tradition and practice?
Yet it's exactly the job of the men and women elected to the legislature to question the men and women working for them in the bureaucracy.
Asking questions doesn't make them sound stupid, it makes them sound curious and attentive. Challenging the conduct and decisions of the senior bureaucrats directly beneath them is not a sign of disrespect. Instead, it's respect for their roles as elected representatives, respect for their constituents and respect for the responsibility of government.
Holding individuals in the public sector in positions of power accountable, whether they are politicians, journalists or concerned citizens, is not a personal attack on those individuals. It is the duty of all citizens in a working democracy to question authority and to hold those in authority responsible when their conduct appears less than satisfactory.
The leaders in that process of overseeing government bureaucracy, however, must be our elected officials, whether they are at the local, regional, provincial or national level.
These leaders are in the position to access information and insist on accountability for the senior civil servants who report directly to them. Failing or refusing to do so is a dereliction of duty and a betrayal of the trust voters have put in them.
Before he was premier, John Horgan sat on the Legislative Assembly Management Committee. Mike de Jong, a two-time B.C. Liberals leadership candidate and longtime cabinet minister under both Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark, has sat on that committee as well.
Based on the Plecas report, both they and the rest of their colleagues failed to adequately oversee the legislative clerk and spot the bureaucratic abuse happening right under their noses. The Legislative Assembly Management Committee met Monday and there was unanimous support in a comprehensive review of the entire legislative assembly operation. Better late than never, but hopefully the review will also hold this committee of MLAs partly responsible for its lack of attentive oversight as a contributing factor behind this mess.
-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
